Community-Supported Breweries Are the Boozy Equivalent of CSAs

My wife thinks CSAs are great. Wow, a random assortment of produce! It’s like a superboring version of Christmas! But CSBs—short for “community supported breweries”—on the other hand: That’s a monthly share I could get behind.

Eater recently looked into the growing CSB phenomenon, seeking out the typically small, oftentimes barely over homebrewer-size breweries that support their business by selling regular shares of future beers to be brewed and delivered later.

Stoneman Brewery is an operation on a farm in Massachusetts that has been running a beer CSA since 2013. Mad Science Brewing Company at Thanksgiving Farms has a similar program they run down in Maryland. And out in Colorado, Soul Squared Brewing brews one barrel at a time for their CSB.

As long as you trust the brewer, CSBs sound like a fun investment. Up-and-coming brewers get to try new things, and customers get to try an ever-changing assortment of fresh beers direct from the source. Think of it as your own personal beer of the month club, or as getting all the spoils of being a homebrewer without actually doing any of the brewing yourself—which is great, because there’s never a good place to store all that equipment.